Mr Shouty

Mr Shouty

One Saturday evening on the train home, we saw this guy. Absolutely crazy. Attention seekingly crazy I think. It was like he had the mental age of a 10 year old, apart from the vulgar vocabulary of an MS-13 gang member.
Many times I was in stitches and all I had was my phone to write these gems down. My shaking fingers couldn't use Swype fast enough.

One of his first jeers to the whole train was "Do you like Hungarians?"
He had sat down in a seat momentrily before by pushing his way up to the top floor of the train carriage and then hauling a middle aged Asian lady out of a window seat she was about to sit down in.

Below is a list of his random proclamations.

If it's May 1st, I want my fuckin money

Do you believe in Jesus Christ?

I got the cross in my pocket

Where do you think the dead go...they're like Michael Jackson


[asks me] mate, why is this train so slow? [He looks around the train, then looks my girlfriend. She is Asian] Is this the slow boat to China?
[my reply] No mate, probably not to be honest. This is a flying train. It's not a boat.
[he pauses] Do you speak English?

[browsing the news paper, then shouts] 60 percent...fuck this

[looking out of the window] Summer Hill....in August, don't be fuckin stupid

[bellows as loud as he can] Jesus is a cunt!


About 20 minutes into our journey with Mr Shouty, a guy a bit drunk and sunburnt and dishevelled got on the train and made the mistake of sitting in the seat directly behind Mr Shouty. Now Mr Shouty had had someone to direct his incoherent rants at.

You can't smoke on the train....why do they torture paranoid schizophrenics

[to another passenger] You believe in AC/DC?...[then cuts the guy off and yells] Shit! Does this train stop at Croydon?

[bloke who just got on the train and slightly drunk asks him] do you dream in colour?
[man answers] this is my country. Canberra is in Australia. And I just got a TV.
[drunk bloke] Yep, you can fly there.

[it's dusk. He makes this exclamation before he gets up to leave, as if he meant to leave us with a hilarious comment] I might catch a bus there, ay. But I can't see in the dark.


I initially did feel a bit of guilt about trying to record this guy, who was obviously mentally ill. He proclaimed loudly to no one in particular (maybe his imaginary buddy) that he lived in a mental institution and had not seen his any of his family for 10 years, lost his job and his home, and about how he had no money, all due to his mental illness. A heart-rending tale. But then as he got off the train he asked the drunk bloke if he wanted to buy a TV. The drunk bloke replied that he had a TV. Mr Shouty replied "I just bought one off my brother last week. I've got it at home."
His verbal racial abuse of everyone on the train was also horrendous. As was his religious slurs. The carriage was full as it was a warm Saturday evening. 90% Asian. Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Thai - there were a mixture of languages going on. Even the girl sitting behind me looked white, and was talking a little bit in English, but her friend came over and addressed her in Polish to move seats. The girl initially refused, and asked to borrow a part of Mr Shouty's newspaper - the TV guide insert - which prompted Mr Shouty to attempt in a hilarious attempt to chat her up:
Mr S: "do you like TV?"
Girl: "yeah"
Mr S: "I bet you do."....
Girl: [no answer]
Mr S: "I think you're gonna watch TV tonight."
Girl: [no answer]
Mr S: "you're gonna watch TV!"
Girl: ...[no answer...she sighs...turns the page]
Even his slight racial abuse directed at me and towards my girlfriend did piss me off a bit, but I think she probably was thinking the same thing as me..."this guy's crazy as shit, and he's abusing everyone, even me. Hell yeah we're gonna film and laugh at him later". She was the one that took secret pictures of him, after my attempts to film him, take pictures and record his voice failed. She had to take pictures of the reflection in the window she was sitting next to.
A teenage Filipino girl sitting facing us, with a direct view of Mr Shouty was quite obviously filming him on her phone too.
Reflecting on the incident afterwards, the guy was pretty harmless and it was easy to ignore his abusive yells, but there was this one big guy on the train, with his family. 5 kids with him, ranging in age from baby to early teens, and his wife. She was pushing a double-seated pushchair. I wonder if the father explained to his 3 year old son why the guy was saying "fuck" and "cunt" a lot, and why those are bad words, and why racial abuse is also bad. I wonder if the father thought "thanks Mr Shouty. I was wondering how to broach those 3 sensitive subjects with my young family, but I was going to wait until at least after my youngest daughter can walk to explain "fuck" and "cunt" and racism"....

Mr Shouty in conversation

Another thing that made me laugh was when the drunk guy got off at the same stop as Mr Shouty. He was afraid to get off with Mr Shouty. I heard the loud, expletive ridden ranting of Mr Shouty, so that I knew he was leaving the train at the stop we were at. I glanced round, saw the drunk guy. He nervously looked out of the window then stared at me. I moved my eyes to the window to follow the path of Mr Shouty as he ambled down the platform, still in the throes of indecipherable ranting, this time at other commuters, the floor and wall; none of which probably understood a word of what he was shouting.
I turned to my girlfriend next to me, she was smirking and looking at the camera screen, then heard this frantic rustling behind me and hurried footsteps. I whirled round to see the drunk guy bundling out onto the platform and looking worriedly up the platform. I turned back to my girlfriend.
She handed me the camera and said "look what I took".